As with so many other facets of global wealth (and health) inequality, the rollout of the four Covid-19 vaccines produced by Western pharmaceutical companies and approved by American and European health officials – the “Big Four” of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson – has quickly became yet another…
Africa is finally joining the rest of the world in providing the long-awaited COVID-19 vaccinations to its people, beginning with Rwanda and Kenya. Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Angola and Congo have also received their first vaccine doses, while Mali, Senegal, Malawi and Uganda are set to receive them later this…
African nations may have a better idea of what COVID-19 vaccination products to expect with an update from the global COVAX Facility issued Wednesday. COVAX, led by the Gavi vaccine alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization, provided a country-by-country breakdown in a detailed…
A video from Egypt, shared widely on social media, has brought renewed international attention to the COVID-19 pandemic on the African continent. The video, which has not been independently verified by AT, was shot at the El Husseineya Central Hospital in the eastern Ash Sharqia region. It appears to show…
South African health officials are grappling with a new wave of COVID infections, some linked to a newly identified variant of the coronavirus as the country closes in on 25,000 fatalities. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) announced another 216 COVID fatalities on Monday. At least 150 samples from…
The Urumuri robot helping to screen passengers at Rwanda’s Kigali International Airport is just one of more than 120 health technology innovations that Africans are using in the fight against COVID-19. That’s according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) analysis of 1,000 new or modified technologies developed around the…
The globetrotting Teodorin Obiang is raising a few eyebrows again, this time for his stay at the tony Four Seasons on Voavah where he’s enjoying a lavish holiday lifestyle on a private island in the Maldives. Obiang, the son of President Teodoro Obiang and a vice president of Equatorial Guinea,…
Humanitarian aid workers in Nigeria say that food prices have soared because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost is driving hunger in parts of the country that can ill afford yet another challenge. “Everywhere we work the food prices have gone up, in some places they doubled. It means…
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to push as many as 150 million more people into extreme poverty by 2021, the World Bank says, marking the first time in 20 years that the number of those in such poverty will rise. The pandemic “compounds the forces of conflict and climate change”…
There were 20,000 empty chairs set up in view of the White House on Sunday as part of a memorial for those lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, even as President Donald Trump remained in the hospital himself following a positive diagnosis for the virus. The chair represented “a fraction of…
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo Addo was among the world leaders quick to send encouragement to United States President Donald Trump following the news that Trump and his wife, Melania, tested positive for the coronavirus. “My wife Rebecca and I send best wishes,” said Akufo Addo, who was exposed to the…
With the COVID-19 pandemic and its many sorrows has come a new appreciation for essential workers, and now a Roman Catholic nun in Zambia has been named one of “seven unsung heroes” by wealthy philanthropist Bill Gates. Gates recently featured Sr. Astridah Banda in his popular “Gates Notes” newsletter and…
Uganda is celebrating the birth of another baby mountain gorilla, the fifth such arrival for the endangered species in the last six weeks. The latest little gorilla was born to Ruterana, an adult female in the Rushegura family group that lives in the Bwindi forest. It is her third child,…
Policies that deliver a Temporary Basic Income (TBI) for the world’s poorest people could help some 3 billion people to stay home, thereby slowing the current surge in COVID-19 transmission in developing nations. That’s according to a new report released Thursday by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which puts…
South African photographer Daniela Zondagh captured a striking image of an empty table with 1,000 seats to help business owners in the hospitality industry illustrate the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on their livelihoods. Zondagh documented the table setup for Bosman Family Vineyards, which claims an eight-generation heritage in…